''List of the Birds ot Wayne county, 
Ohio." There are other instances of its 
rarity or absence from restricted locali- 
ties. Its range extends from the Atlan- 
tic ocean west to eastern Nebraska, and 
north into Labrador and the fur coun- 
tries, occasionally wandering even to 
Greenland. It winters in the tropics 
south of the United States. 
In the northward migration it reaches 
Texas about the third week in April 
and Manitoba near the end of the first 
week in May, thus passing completely 
across the country in about three 
weeks. A careful computation proves 
that the average rate at which this war- 
bler traveled across the country, in the 
spring of 1885, was nearly forty miles a 
day. A single year, however, might 
show a considerable departure from the 
normal rate of migration. This in- 
stance is given to show any who may 
not be familiar with the phenomena of 
bird migration that small birds, at least, 
do not perform their whole migration 
in a single flight, but rest a good deal 
by the way. 
The migrating Nashville warblers, in 
my experience, prefer the outskirts of 
the larger woods, but may be found 
anywhere in the smaller woods, pre- 
ferring the middle branches, rarely 
ascending to the tree-tops, not seldom 
gleaning near the ground in the under- 
brush, or even among the leaves on the 
ground. They are by no means con- 
fined to the woods, but glean as boldly 
and sing as cheerfully among the fruit 
and shade trees in town, but they are 
more numerous in the woods. 
The song has been compared to that 
of the chestnut-sided warblex and the 
chipping sparrow combined. To my 
ear the Nashville warbler's song is 
enough unlike the song of any other 
bird to be easily recognized after a sin- 
gle hearing. Rev. J. H. Langille's ren- 
dering: " Ke tsee, ke tsee, ke tsee, 
chip ee, chip ee, chip ee, chip, is a 
close approximation, but seems some- 
what lacking in the true expression of 
the first part of the song. My note 
book renders it thus: " K tsip, k tsip, 
k tsip, k tsip, chip ee, chip ee, chip ee, 
chip." The first part of the song is thus 
halting, with a considerable pause be- 
tween the phrases, while the last part 
is uttered more rapidly and with little 
effort. This song, issuing from the 
trees in every direction', is always 
closely associated in the writer's mind 
with the early morning hours, the drip- 
ping trees and the sweet incense of the 
flower-decked woods and bursting buds. 
While feeding, these warblers often 
'gather into groups of a dozen or twenty 
individuals, and may be associated with 
other species, thus forming a consider- 
able company. The warbler student is 
familiar with the waves of warblers and 
other small birds which range through 
the woods, now appearing in a bewil- 
dering flutter of a hundred wings, now 
disappearing in their eager quest for a 
lunch of insects. 
The breeding-range of this warbler 
extends as far south as Connecticut in 
the East, and Michigan and Minnesota, 
if not northern Iowa in the West, and 
north to the limit of its range. In com- 
mon with the other members of this 
genus, the Nashville warbler nests on 
the ground, usually in a spot well pro- 
tected by dried grasses and other litter 
of the previous year's growth, often in 
a tangle of shrubs, ferns and bushes. 
The nest is sometimes sunk flush with 
the surface, and is composed of grasses, 
mosses, pine needles, strips of bark and 
leaves, lined with finer material of the 
same sort and with hair-like rootlets, 
the composition varying with the local- 
ity. The eggs are pure white or 
creamy-white, marked with spots and 
dots of reddish-brown and the usual 
lilac shell-markings, which are grouped 
more or less around the larger end. 
They are four or five in number, and 
average about .61 x .48 of an inch. 
The spring males may readily be rec- 
ognized in the bush by their small size, 
by the bright yellow underparts, by 
their ashy heads and back, and by their 
habit of feeding in the middle branches 
of the trees down to the underbrush. 
The concealed rufous spot on the crown, 
from which the bird takes its scientific 
specific name, can rarely be seen in the 
live bird, no doubt chiefly because the 
bird is perpetually above you. 
170 
